Rainbow Life
by AndAllThatMishigas
Summary: Everyone is born into a world of gray. Each person in your life brings you a new color. Lucien Blake and Jean Beazley examine the colors of their lives and the people who brought them.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is the first 'soulmate' story I've ever written so I hope I did the trope justice! I've been thinking about this all day and I'm pleased with how it turned out. Please review and let me know what you think!

 **Rainbow Life**

A rainbow life. That's what they called it. When you were somehow lucky enough to live a life so full that you got to see every color. No more gray, no more missing pieces to fill in. It was shockingly rare, and whether or not they'd admit it, everyone yearned to live it. A rainbow life.

As a young boy, Lucien Blake constantly asked his mother to tell him about the colors, and the people she'd known who had given them to her. She helped him understand the colors he could already see. After she was gone, he'd had to figure the rest out for himself.

Purple came from family. It was the color of the flowers Mother kept in her art studio. There were so many shades; whenever someone became a member of the family, a new hue would appear.

Yellow came from friendship. It was bright and cheerful; his mates in school each added a new color to the sun and the daffodils.

Orange came from rivals. So close to friendship that it was often mistaken. It was Patrick Tyneman who first brought Lucien this color. It was so rich, adding such dimension to the leaves in the autumn that he thought perhaps this must be friendship. Sometimes it felt that way with Patrick. But no, Patrick's lovely pale orange was later overshadowed by Derek Alderton's dark rust orange, which was surely unmistakable.

Blue came from mentors. That one had confused Lucien at first. It felt like purple, so dark and luxurious. Before he even realized it, he'd already seen blue everywhere. His mother figured it out before he did. She could see the way young Lucien watched his father work, utterly fascinated. Thomas was his father, certainly, but also his idol and role model as a child. When Lucien decided he wanted to become a doctor, he saw the color of the sky.

Green came from deep friendship. Yellow would fade into it as people became closer and closer. Lucien had many pale yellow-greens over the years, but the plants remained a muddy gray. Matthew Lawson had let him see the grass. Mattie O'Brien had given him the most beautiful shade of blue-green turquoise. Alice Harvey gave him the deep green of evergreen pines.

Pink came from romantic love. From mauve to pale blossom to fuchsia, the women in Lucien's life brought him the passionate colors. Monica was the first, the sweet color of roses. Mei Lin's purple-pink had drawn her to him immediately; they had made a life together that he never thought he'd leave. She'd given him Li, with whom he saw a bright vibrant purple color that quickly became his very favorite.

After the war, Lucien didn't see any new colors for a very long time. The spots of gray that remained became familiar and comforting. He was so afraid to allow anyone into his life for fear that new color would dull what he still held. When he first returned to Australia, he went into a menswear shop in Melbourne on a whim. He found a silk handkerchief in exactly Li's color. It never left his pocket if he could ever help it.

He had received word that his father was dying. The last thing Lucien wanted to do was return to Ballarat; there was nothing for him there. But he wouldn't let his father die alone. He would do what he knew his mother would have wanted. She would have wanted them together at the end.

The housekeeper opened the door for him when he arrived at the old Blake house. And the first thing he saw was her lipstick. It was a new shade of pink. It had to be. She was very beautiful. He was almost a little embarrassed that he had developed this crush on her at first glance. It had been a long time since he'd instantly seen a new color upon meeting a person; he'd been told that could happen, though it must have been rare for someone of his age.

Lucien lived at the house for several months, helping cover his father's patients when he was unable and assisting Mattie, the live-in district nurse, care for the ailing Thomas. And when he passed, Lucien knew he had to stay to tie up the loose ends.

And then the colors came. More and more all the time. Mattie and Danny and Matthew and Charlie and Alice. Electric pink from Joy MacDonald. A new orange from Munro. Jean's boys, Jack and Christopher, each brought slightly new purples, which surprised Lucien more than he would admit. The idea of leaving Ballarat faded away along with the gray.

As he grew closer to Jean, the pink he saw in her lipstick that first moment got brighter and brighter. He started seeing it elsewhere. Lucien was unsure if he'd ever felt this way before. He'd never been so desperately excited to see a color before. He'd never been so desperately excited to be with any other person before.

He didn't fully realize what it was until he was sitting in his mother's old studio one day. Her paintings all looked different to him now. He had so many more colors now than when he was a boy.

And that's when it hit him like a bolt of lightning. A memory tucked deep in his mind from so long ago.

"What's that color supposed to be?"

Genevieve had smiled down at her young son, following to where he pointed to the paint she was using. "Rouge, mon petit. It is the rarest color of all, and it is my very favorite."

"When does it come?" he asked curiously.

She explained, "Pink comes from romantic love, but red, like this one, comes when you meet your soulmate. The one person who you love and who loves you more than anything else. And when you see it, you'll know you've found the person you will spend the rest of your life with. I first saw it when I met your father. It was the color of the tie he was wearing that evening. To see it, so vibrant and beautiful, it took my breath away. One day you will see a beautiful new color from a person who makes your heart expand with love, and you will understand, Lucien."

He hadn't thought about those words in so very long. He had recognized that Monica hadn't given him red, which was part of why he'd left her. He and Mei Lin had been so happy that he hadn't even realized that her color couldn't have been red. And after that, he'd stopped looking for it.

And that was why he hadn't understood. The lipstick wasn't pink. She didn't wear pink lipstick. Jean wore red lipstick.

Lucien practically ran out of the room and found Jean in the sunroom. He felt his whole body buzzing in anticipation.

She looked at him with wide, concerned eyes. "Lucien? What's the matter?"

"I've figured it out."

"Figured what out? A case?" she asked in confusion.

He shook his head. "Your lipstick. It's red."

"That's what I've been told, yes." Everyone wore this color. The shops all sold it, and most women who bothered wearing lipstick at all bought it based on that. Most people just saw it as gray anyway, so it didn't matter much.

"Red lipstick," he breathed reverently. Lucien leaned in, stopping inches from her face, waiting for her to back away or push him off. But she didn't. She closed her eyes and parted her lips ever so slightly. He closed the distance between them, kissing her deeply. Lucien held her tight against him as her hands found their way to his face. Their mouths moved against each other with a yearning and a sense of relief at having finally found where they belonged.

Breathlessly, they broke apart. "My goodness," she whispered.

He chuckled, embracing her. "I can't believe it took so long to figure out."

"Figure what out?"

"You're my rainbow."

Jean's eyes filled with tears, overwhelmed by his admission. She nodded, laughing slightly. "And you're mine."


	2. Chapter 2

"That's just a myth. No one really lives a rainbow life."

Jean had argued with Hugh until she was blue in the face, but her older brother just kept insisting that the five-year-old was wrong. She had worked herself to tears at the very thought that her whole world might stay gray all her life.

But the eldest Walker child had taken his baby sister in his arms to comfort her. "Don't listen to Hugh, Jeanie. I'm older than he is. I know better," Arthur told her with a smile.

"Only a year older. And how do you really know, Art?" she asked him between hitched breaths.

"I know that if anyone is going to live a rainbow life, it's you, Jean Louise Walker. You're the most special little girl in all the world," he said.

Many years later, Jean Beazley reflected on her brother's words. It had only been a few years later that Arthur had died. Hugh had left for Perth, too distraught at the loss of his brother to remain anywhere near Ballarat. Jean had been left with her older sister, Elizabeth, who had gotten married in Melbourne far too soon after that.

As a result, much of her childhood had remained gray, sprinkled with pale pastels. Different shades of purple from all her siblings and her parents. The bright blue she'd gotten from Art had seemed to grow dull as she coped with the loss of her protector and idol. As she watched and learned to cook and clean from her mother, the sky began to gain a more vibrant color.

But other than that, her world had been filled with light yellows and oranges of friendship and rivalries in school. Nothing too significant in the relationships or the colors they produced. As she got older, some unimportant, hazy pinks came with the boys she'd started to notice.

Until one day, she saw the most shocking, vivid pink. It was the color of the begonias at the festival. And there he was. Christopher Beazley was wild and impulsive and exciting. And he took her along for the ride. She'd begun planting begonias just because they reminded her of her husband.

Christopher Jr. and Jack came along, each bringing a new lavender and violet, respectively. And the pink of the begonia started to fade. Or perhaps it didn't. But it didn't fill Jean with the same kind of joy that it once did. They were so busy and focused on just keeping the farm afloat and raising their boys that she didn't even think about the fact that her life was still more gray than anything else.

When Christopher went to war and didn't come home, Jean couldn't help but feel as though she had done something to deserve all that gray. Arthur's words to her as a child seemed to be a mean joke now.

But somehow, like sunlight after a storm, Jean's life after being widowed brought her more color than she ever imagined possible. She found Dr. Blake, who gave her a job and a purpose and treated her like a friend and a daughter. From him, she discovered the turquoise blue-green of her own eyes.

Living with the doctor, she met new people and made friends. Chief Superintendent Matthew Lawson gave her the bright green of the leaves in the garden. The nurse hired to care for Dr. Blake in his last months, Mattie, brought the deep green of the trees around the lake.

As Dr. Blake got sicker, he sent for his son, Lucien. Jean didn't like him at first. He was arrogant and inconsiderate and moody. But for some strange reason, Jean found that her nail polish had color for the first time in her life. She categorically refused to believe that this dark pink had anything to do with Lucien Blake. Yes, of course, he was gorgeous and had eyes the color blue that she'd gotten from Art, but Lucien Blake was not the proper person to have any sort of romantic affection for.

"Jean, do you know why I insist on sitting in this chair, even when I can't get out of bed on my own?" Thomas Blake had asked her in his final days.

"No, why?"

"Because it's red. Red that was given to me by my dear Genevieve. Lucien and I lost her far too young. The chair is the only thing I'll allow in the house to remind me of her. I haven't lived a rainbow life, but I was lucky enough to have this," he told her, a deep reverence in his voice.

Jean wasn't sure what to say. She just stared at the upholstery of the chair.

"Do me a favor, would you? Don't let Lucien get rid of it," he requested.

She nodded. It was at that moment that she recognized the chair as being the same color as her fingernails.

Still, she denied it. When Lucien put a comforting arm around her at the funeral, letting her use the beautiful purple handkerchief in his pocket to dry her tears, she refused to acknowledge anything more than was polite.

Not even when she first saw the bright orange of a rival from Joy MacDonald did Jean allow herself to concede.

But his light touches, his kind words at the most unexpected times, his passionate care for his patients and the cases he worked on for the police…it eventually became difficult to ignore.

"Jean, can you give me a hand?" Mattie shouted from the parlor. "I need to move this chair for a moment and it's bloody heavy!"

Slightly annoyed at the interruption in the middle of dressing the roast, Jean wiped her hands on her apron and asked, "Which chair, the red one?"

Mattie stood beside the chair in question, staring at Jean with wide eyes and a slacked jaw. "You…?"

Jean hadn't even realized what she'd said. "Yes," she replied simply. "Come on, let's move it, then. But please be careful with it."

Mattie knew better than to push the subject. But she couldn't help but grin madly for her dear friend, beyond happy and just the slightest bit jealous that Jean had found someone who gave her red.

Lucien arrived home that evening just in time for dinner. Jean couldn't take her eyes off him. She felt warm from the inside out as she allowed herself to realize that she hadn't seen a spot of gray in the longest time.

"Jean, this is absolutely delicious," Lucien complimented.

She grinned proudly, not trusting herself to say anything just yet. He hadn't figured it out yet, but Jean had every confidence he would eventually. And until then, she kept the beautiful secret tucked in her heart. He was her rainbow.


End file.
